


The Heart In My Breast

by jat_sapphire



Category: The Lost Prince - Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Professionals (TV 1977)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27223564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jat_sapphire/pseuds/jat_sapphire
Summary: The Crown Prince of Samavia and his Aide-de-camp come to visit England;  Bodie and Doyle are assigned to guard them.  Prince Ivor also wants to tell Bodie something that has been a secret since Bodie's birth.  Bodie will need to make an important decision about his future.
Relationships: Marco Loristan/The Rat, William Bodie/Ray Doyle
Comments: 11
Kudos: 21
Collections: CI5 Box of Tricks 2020





	1. Prologue:  Precocious

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my artist, Jinky_O for the trailer vid And the cover!

Jem Ratcliffe had been precocious since before he knew the word. He'd lisped his alphabet when he was barely three years of age, as he lay on the couch in the long illness that cost him the strength of his legs and that, when she caught it, took his mother's life. He'd learned to read by the time he was five, pushing his small finger along the lines of newsprint, and asked questions that made his father roar with laughter and grab his bottle to gulp down his gin. Half-drunk, he'd answer with long, rambling tales that, crass and full of bad language, were the closest thing young Jemmy knew to bedtime stories. He lived a dim, grey life in a shadowed, dirty basement flat in the too-aptly named Bone Court. When his father wanted to send him on errands, he devised the rickety wheeled platform where Jem could crouch and push himself about, feeling low as a worm, like a tortoise prised from his shell. He begged and got scatterings of change from passers-by who seemed to disdain even the coins that dropped from their gloved hands. At an age when most children had nothing more serious than common chores to worry about, he scraped together rent for progressively dingier rooms, skimpier or barely edible food, and never had enough to hope for any improvement, desperate to hide his coins lest his father take them for drink.

Wheeling through the street, dodging splashes of filth from passing carriages, he could see the rats scurry behind the rubbish in the sunken area spaces outside the scullery doors, and in grubby alleyways. They moved as he did, and only a little lower to the ground. Their eyes were hot and angry, and they scuffled fiercely with each other. Occasionally a rat-terrier running behind its master pounced on one of them, growling and trying to bark around it as it struggled in the vice of the dog's teeth. Sometimes the fierce shaking broke the rat's neck, and the dog tossed its dead prey aside and ran to catch up to the pedestrian to which the dog belonged. Sometimes, a less experienced dog could not keep hold of its prey, and the rat ran off like quicksilver.

Jem was ten years old when his father sent him to the nearest pawnbroker with a watch-fob to see what he could get for it, for Mr Ratcliffe had a strong thirst and no gin to satisfy it. The door beneath the three red spheres opened directly onto the cobbled alleyway, so at least Jem could get in when he banged on the lower panel with his dirty fist. The pawnbroker, a stout man with snuff spattered down his waistcoat and old-fashioned breeches, laughed heartily at Jem as he joltingly got inside. A glass case stood near the door: inside it was a tangled pile of pawned jewellery and timepieces, along with a few pieces of table serving-ware. A watch-fob with a light silver chain looped back twice, finer than any Jem had ever seen, lay draped across the heap.

Jem was not surprised when his father's fob just made the pawnbroker laugh again. He shook like a suet pudding on a plate, rocking a little back and forth on his seat. Jem bent his head and waited. He knew he'd be for it if he didn't bring back drinking money.

The pawnbroker stopped laughing and coughed a bit, then reached out, bending so far that he looked in danger of falling. His fingertips tangled in Jem's hair. “You look like a good boy.” The man's voice was rough. “Do odd jobs for a coin or two, do you?”

Jem didn't answer right away. His breath caught in his chest, as if he knew what was coming, though he was fairly sure he did not.

“Come closer,” the pawnbroker said, so Jem slid his platform nearer to the man's spread legs. The knobby knees parted farther, and the man bent forward so that his fingers slid to Jem's neck. Jem looked up. “Open my flies.” 

Afterwards, the man gave him a whole pound note. Jem bought a cheap flask of gin, so he could keep the change. He considered getting a smaller one for himself, so he could have it before he went back, but he was afraid it would make him awkward and talkative. So he just learned to bear it as best he could. He found the tiny side alley where the street children gathered a day or two after that first time, and charmed them with his darting, comically rat-like movements. He made them laugh and told them about army battles, read them newspapers and serial stories, and soon he was directing them, teaching them to march and drill just like the soldiers in the barracks down by the river.

It was amazing how much better he felt with something to do, people his own age to talk to, and though his father remained bad-tempered and drunken, the boys weren't toffs or anything. They knew most of what he meant when he told them he had to do an odd job. They didn't follow or ask questions. When the pawnbroker gave him the second-hand crutches, Ben carried them back to their narrow alley barracks. Ben and Cad helped Jem get the crutches under his arms and stood him up to use their support. The boys even helped him adjust the crutches to the right length, and caught him when he stumbled.

He taught himself to stand on the crutches, to walk, to swing along at speed until his father's errands to get food and gin took much less of his time. Now he had more hours to read newspapers and work out the battles they described, until he felt he could lead a fighting force, plan their attack or make their defence solid and unbeatable. 

And then he met Marco: tall and straight, his eyes and hair dark as a cellar with only a narrow window to the night sky, his shoulders splendid and the muscles on his thighs and arms showing a young lion's strength. He stood like a Colossus in the passage to the street, and at first Jem thought his expression was scornful, as if he thought himself above this scruffy company.

But he wasn't vain, wasn't self-absorbed, wasn't any less sharp and clever than Jem himself, and had wells of self-control that made Jem envious at first and later proud. This beautiful, strong, smart, thoughtful boy, a year his junior, was glad to be his friend and even to show him and his ragged company to his own father, a man whose dignity, bearing, courtesy and—Jem had to call it—wisdom made him seem another, more advanced species than Jem's collapsing father. 

When he collapsed for the last time, shivering and moaning his horrors up to the last convulsion in the deepest, most hopeless hour of the night, when all that was left of his mean soul had slipped away and left only a sordid physical mess, where else could Jem go for help but to Marco and his live, strong, kind, wise father, who looked at Jem with knowledge and sweet compassion, as if he had held a drunken maniac in his muscular arms and comforted those last tortuous hours? And he was helped, taken in, cared for, and Loristan even walked in the straggling procession to the pauper's field to lay the weazened corpse to rest. 

Jem was in a sort of heaven: he had never understood his father's drunkenness as well as he did now, when he feasted his eyes and fed his adoration every morning and evening, sitting at table with Loristan and hearing his easy talk with Marco. Some days and even nights, Loristan was away doing something he did not tell them about, and the Rat scratched at his arms and sat hard on his restlessness until Marco's father was home again and Jem's addiction was eased. It helped that all of every day he could be with Marco, walking and reading and working to train his memory and his reasoning. At night, he lay on the narrow, worn but clean sofa, looking at the little window full of stars and often a moon, making desultory conversation and imagining wonders. “'Let pass through thy mind, my son, only the image thou wouldst desire to see become a truth,'” he remembered, and sometimes said out loud. He tried to follow the Law of Earthly Living, but too often his mind slipped into a wish of his heart that he was not at all sure was not ignoble. He longed to see Marco bare, in the light, all of him laid out against the sheets and as beautiful as the day. 

Later, when the Game was played out and they were in Samavia again, he lay in soft sheets of his own, in his own room, and when he shut his eyes, often found himself back in the cavern with the Forgers of the Sword as they cried out and put their hands in the air or prostrated themselves on the rough stone floor, worshipping the young Bearer of the Sign, the image and reincarnation of their boy-saint Ivor. In a dream he had repeatedly, they didn't just paw at Marco's clothes, they tore them away, bit by bit, pieces falling like autumn leaves, while they eagerly stroked and kissed the luminous skin as it was revealed. Jem watched, reaching out his own hands and hungering for touch. In the mornings after those nights, he found himself sticky and clammy, tingling and still full of desire—guilty, shamed, but wanting still. He took to keeping a towel on the bedside table, so he could clean up a little and not feel so dirty when he met Marco for breakfast under Lazarus' martial eye. 

Being precocious, he decided, was vastly over-rated.


	2. Babysitting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bodie and Doyle are assigned to protect the Samavian royal party.

Bodie grimaced at the file in his hand. Doyle nudged him with one shoulder. 

"There's no need to pull faces," Cowley said. "Just a state visit, going to hunt at Balmoral after a state dinner, meet with MI6 and plan to keep the Soviets from swallowing up the whole country." He took a sip of his own whiskey but did not offer any to the agents. "Simple enough, lads." 

"Mm," Bodie grunted in reply. He'd never thought much of the confetti states between Germany and the USSR. "First time in the big city, is it?" 

"On the contrary. Ratcliffe was born in London, and the Crown Prince drifted in and out of most of the great cities of Europe as a child. They may have a few London memories to revisit, but mostly they'll be at work and you'll protect them." 

Doyle looked curious. "KGB after them?" 

"No hints so far. Read the history: Russian Intelligence may hold them a grudge for their part in the Samavian revolution. They carried the news by hand—and on foot—to what was romantically known as the Secret Party, and then the Crown Prince's father Ivor was restored to the throne. Great Britain is an ally, though the most Samavia can do in return is to hold off the Soviets and keep the Iron Curtain where it is. Guarding them should be a simple enough job." 

"Unless something goes wrong," Doyle muttered. 

Cowley shrugged. "Like any other job, 4-5." 

Doyle gazed at the photographs in the file. All men, all in their seventies or eighties, faces stern and sober. He fancied he could tell the Englishman from the Samavians, but the Crown Prince—Doyle felt the corners of his mouth crimp, fought the desire to nudge Bodie again—the Crown Prince had short hair peppered with steel grey at temples and crown; his eyebrows made winged shapes, and his eyes were dark blue under extravagantly long, curling lashes. His long mouth curled with good humour even when he was serious, and the shape of his face was classic, like a marble statue. Almost as pale. Strong and, well, tall, dark and beautiful. Like a waxwork of Bodie, only older. 

The resemblance was even stronger in person. Sir James Ratcliffe was remarkable to look at, with a curling spinal curvature, sharp facial features and light brown hair. His legs were encased in bright braces and he wore crutches bracing his forearms. He navigated the narrow stairs outside the small airplane as easily as anyone else, talking all the time over his shoulder to his tall Prince, close behind him. They looked as if they were protecting each other, guarding each other's backs, the way he and Bodie did, and seemed as attached. The best of mates, even as elderly men. Closer than brothers. 

At the base of the stairs, Prince Ivor, Sir James, Baron Rastka, Bodie and Doyle assembled, and both agents bowed and greeted the distinguished guests before leading them to a modest limousine. The two older men could not stop staring at Bodie. Ray drove, and Bodie answered questions, though neither of the older men seemed to have much to ask. They stared as if they hungered for Bodie's image, his gestures, his smile. As if it were Bodie they had come to see, not Queen Elizabeth. 

At the Four Seasons, Rastka took the luggage up to the Samavians' suite while the royal party sat in the hotel "bar," like a combination restaurant and top-tier pub, where they were seated in a secluded nook on soft cushions, under golden lamplight, and Bodie and Doyle had single-malt while the Samavians had wine—a vintage from their own country that was the colour of evening sun in the beads of a pomegranate. 

Finally, Bodie gave Crown Prince Ivor a straight, frank look and said, "We're told you have lived here in England." 

"Yes!" said the Crown Prince, forcefully, with a kind of joy that Doyle could not understand. 

"Did you visit Balmoral?" Doyle said, thinking of the next polite conversational gambit. 

Ratcliffe laughed aloud. "When I lived here, HRH wouldn't have soiled her shoes by stepping on me. Not if I were lying in the gutter in front of the step for the State Carriage." 

Ivor glanced over with fondness. "Her loss," he said. "Jem and I were boys here in London." 

"We met here," said Ratcliffe. "In the East End. I was thirteen years old. Marco—Ivor, I should say—was twelve." 

"It was a stroke of luck I took years to appreciate properly." Ivor still looked fond and pleased. 

"I knew my luck sooner." Ratcliffe looked at his wine glass and moved the base in a small circle that made the wine spin, rising on the side of the glass.

"We—my father and I—knew Jem's worth within the year. We could trust our deepest and most dangerous tasks and secrets to him." Ivor took another sip and savoured the liquid as it rolled around his mouth. Ratcliffe avoided everyone's eyes, apparently embarrassed and modest. 

Doyle's curiosity was roused, though he would probably never so much as ask the questions that crowded his mind. 

"And you men?" The prince spoke to both agents, but it was only Bodie he looked at. 

"Liverpool born," the younger man answered, "left home at fourteen, fought abroad, came back and joined the army, the Paras, SAS, then was seconded to CI5. Got paired up with this scruff—" he ruffled Doyle's hair—"and here we are today." 

"Indeed," beamed the prince. 

He didn't ask about Doyle's past. 

Doyle caught Bodie's flashing look, but was still surprised when, after clearing his throat, Bodie told the prince about him anyway. "Doyle came to London to take art classes, then joined the Metropolitan Police Force, then uncovered some corrupt officers and exposed them." 

"Good work," said the prince amiably. 

"The other officers didn't think so," Bodie went on, "so he applied to CI5 and Cowley snatched him up." 

Typically, Doyle would have tossed off a comment at this point about Bodie's luck in getting partnered with him, to which Bodie might have made some response about plodding police officers or his own diligence in training Doyle. But the simple pleasure in Bodie's face and in the Samavians' faces kept him silent, somehow. A few moments' silence fell, almost as comfortable as on an obbo or in the car as the agents drove somewhere. 

"I ought to have guessed," said the prince, "that you would make wise choices and find companions of honour and excellence." 

Another silence fell, this one full of bafflement on the Englishmen's side. Ratcliffe touched the prince's arm and then took his hand away. 

"Why would you have any expectations of me, your Royal Highness?" Bodie asked. 

For the first time, Crown Prince Ivor looked down, then away, as if he felt compunction. 

"Oh, the prince—Marco—always has expected the best of other people. Here stand two men for England, eh, Marco?" said Ratcliffe, watching his prince with pride and fondness. 

"An idealist," Bodie said. "Doyle's another." 

"God be thanked," Ratcliffe said. Then, as if realizing how strange the prayer-like statement would sound, he turned to the prince again and said, "Your first memory, isn't it? Go ahead, tell it." 

"My father," said Crown Prince Ivor, "was in hiding, in exile. We were a family, a principality, of three: Lazarus, my father, and me. All I knew for years was that I was surrounded by secrets, breathed and ate them, and must never let down my guard lest I give them away. When I was perhaps five years old, we came to England, and my father taught me the Oath. He laid his sword, naked, across his knees and placed my hand on its hilt. I repeated after him—sorry, Jem, I cannot tell this part while I'm seated." And he stood, chin now above the hanging lamp shade, the light glowing on his fine white shirt and the red order ribbon that crossed his chest, and though he did not raise his voice, it was deep. He re-took the Oath then and there. 

"The sword in my hand—for Samavia. 

"The heart in my breast—for Samavia. 

"The swiftness of my sight, the thought of my brain, the life of my life—for Samavia.

"Here stands a man for Samavia—God be thanked!" And then he sat again, took a sip of wine, and looked around at all their faces, ending with Ratcliffe's. They smiled together. 

“Don't tell that story to Cowley,” Bodie said, “or he'll be having all the new recruits take a CI5 oath like it.” 

“I promise I shall not,” the prince said, a twinkle in his eye that again made Doyle feel as if he were glimpsing Bodie's future—in the year 20-something, perhaps, retired, happy, married—surely, married? As the prince was not, which seemed strange all of a sudden. His father had reigned since 1914, and was now nearly a hundred years of age. 

Doyle blurted, “I'm glad you are able to be here, to meet the Queen and Prince Philip, be recognised as a fellow monarch.” 

“A fellow constitutional monarch, as well,” Ivor said. 

The visitors and the CI5 agents discussed where they would go in the morning, before meeting with a few select Ministers and Prime Minister Thatcher before the state dinner. Then, the Crown Prince said he was fatigued, Baron Rastka confirmed the time they would be picked up next morning, and they all separated. Bodie and Doyle took a taxi back to the airport to pick up their cars. Upstairs, the Samavians prowled around the suite, finding the robes and slippers that had been unpacked for them. Prince Ivor helped take off Sir James' suit coat and slid his suspenders down his arms until he could pull them out. They sat on a small settee and Sir James said, "Marco." When the prince turned to him, Sir James put one hand on each side of his face and gazed a while. 

Then he said, "Looking at him is like stepping back in time. As straight, as tall, as muscular and strong. And his eyes! He's yours." 

"Mary Maureen's lad. Yes. But a prince for Samavia?" 

"We won't know until we ask him." Ratcliffe's fingertips traced Ivor's eyebrows, ran down to the ends of his mouth, and caressed in tiny circles. "He's got a life here. He'd have to leave it." 

"And his partner Doyle." The prince made a moue. "What would I have said if, to be a man for Samavia, I would have had to give you up?" 

"I could never have asked you to stay." 

"My Jem, my jewel, I would have begged to stay then, as I would now." Ivor brushed Jem's lips with his own, then kissed again, then again, more deeply each time. Shifting against each other, they found a position in which Jem was as reclined as he could comfortably be. His prince held him tight and close, and when they had kissed for some time, Jem laid his head on Ivor's shoulder, and the prince spoke again. 

"The night we arrived in Samavia . . . I'm sure you remember it. Long into the night, my father kept me by his side, petting my hair and asking for more and more of the tale of how we bore the Sign." 

Ratcliffe sighed and rubbed his cheek against Ivor's shoulder, kissing his neck. Ivor went on, "Then we spoke of the succession. I rose from my chair and knelt beside his. I said, 'My father and my king, I will live and die for you and for Samavia's good. I ask only this: the Prince must have his aide-de-camp. The Bearers of the Sign must never be parted. The sun would be darkened in my eyes without him. The breath would leave my lungs.'" 

"My heart could not beat if it did not reach for you," Sir James said. "I would have no strength of limbs or mind. Without you . . . I would be without reason to live." 

"I was fond of Mary Maureen, for her bravery and humor and slim, agile strength. But you, my Jem, you are my life. Not even for Samav—" But he was silenced by Ratcliffe's hand, pressed firmly across his mouth, pinning his lips. 

"I will never ask that. I've followed you from Bone Court, from Philibert Place, from London and Berlin and Vienna and that tiny Alpen town, to the caverns of the Forgers of the Sword. There's nowhere, if it were Hell itself, nowhere I would not follow you. If you ran me through, broke my bones, drank my blood . . ." 

"Swallowed your cock and drank you dry?" 

"That's a reward, not a demand. Sire." 

"You deserve a reward. It's been a long day." 

Prince Ivor led Sir James into the main bedroom, where a large, high bed puffed with a goose down mattress under a down duvet lay like a snow bank, if snow were as warm as their hearts.


	3. A Plain Brown Envelope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prince Ivor gives Bodie copies of family records.

The next morning, Bodie and Doyle brought the gold Capri to The Four Seasons to pick up the royal party. 

"We should like to visit where we once lived, here in London," said Crown Prince Ivor while Sir James was still getting into the Capri's back seat. "I know our state dinner is tonight, but I also have an errand I would like to run, if possible. I believe the place is called Somerset House." 

"That's closed now, more than ten years, 1970 it was," Doyle said. "The records are in St. Catherine's House now. But we can certainly go there if you wish." 

They searched for Bone Court, but couldn't be sure they had found it. The area had suffered much from the Blitz, and new high-rise flat blocks stood where the old ramshackle buildings had been. Philibert Place was still there, though it looked as though it were just about to topple down and take its neighbors with it. 

"I wonder what happened to Mrs Beedle," said Sir James. Prince Ivor put one hand on this aide-de-camp's lower shoulder, and the grin on his face was so like Bodie's that Doyle had to look, to check that they really were two men and not one. 

It felt natural, as if they had all known each other for years. But all that ease disappeared at St Catherine's. Ivor came out of the building with a flat brown envelope, which he handed to Bodie. 

"Examine it at your leisure. These copies are for you. Tomorrow, I will answer any questions that you have." 

Shortly after that, they went back to the hotel to get ready for the state dinner. All five men put on their white-tie gear. Bodie winked at Doyle to convey how handsome he felt they all looked. He always looked sexy and distinguished in his tuxedo, and Doyle's rented suit fit unusually well. Prince Ivor, so tall and straight that his graying hair looked like a decoration, was impressive, and Sir James, in what must be a bespoke suit, looked as if he were born to state occasions. The creases of his trousers and the bow tie at his throat were perfect, and even the crutches looked polished. 

Bodie drove to Buckingham Palace, let the royal party out at the guest entrance, and he and Doyle went in the security entrance and were directed to the reception salon. It was easy enough to tell the white-tie-clad security from the guests. Bodie and Doyle found good spots to observe from, and Prince Ivor and Sir James moved smoothly through the crowd and toward the small, white-haired figure with the diamond crown. Prince Philip and Prince Charles were beside her. Princess Diana was on a state visit. The children were not there, too young for long state occasions. 

The Russian Ambassador seemed to be interested in the Samavians, which both agents knew would be interesting to Cowley. But in a reception like this, there was little more to be observed. 

Some security officers went into the dining room before Her Majesty and the guests processed in; more Security followed. Footmen in red uniforms lined the walls. Doyle took a guard position while Bodie sat at the table. He glanced at Doyle again, smirking and patting his cummerbund, anticipating the rich meal. 

The wine was light and the colour of morning sunlight, the soup a pale consommé, the fish a slice of lovely poached salmon like a fresh pink rose. The salad had tomatoes and perfect leaves of basil; the filet of beef was richly browned on the outside and red within. Roast potatoes had been carved into flowers and drizzled with the beef roast jus while asparagus lay like heraldic greens on the side. Galettes with tiny strawberries and plump raspberries followed, then a selection of English and Samavian cheeses and French Champagne to toast the company. 

There were no alarms, no disturbances. The guests and dignitaries processed back to the salon, mingled a bit more, and then departed. The Samavian royal party was deposited again at The Four Seasons, and Doyle reported to HQ on the R/T before they called it a night. 

Bodie, now in the passenger seat, lifted the envelope and let it fall to his lap. "Stop up at mine, find out what all this is in aid of?" 

"All right," Doyle answered, sitting on his curiosity. 

Once in his flat, Bodie made tea and they settled on each end of the couch, and then he picked up the envelope, turning it over a few times in his hands. Then, with a grimace, he ripped it open and took out the two documents it contained. 

For a long moment, Bodie stared at the first document, then quickly at the second. He held them out for Doyle. 

The first was a marriage certificate, dated in December of 1946, for Marco Loristan and Mary Maureen Bodie. The second was Bodie's birth certificate with Marco Loristan as the father and Mary Maureen Loristan as mother. 

Putting his teacup and its saucer carefully on the coffee table, Bodie went to the liquor cabinet and poured two fingers for each of them. Back on the couch, he handed one glass to Doyle, who had already put down his teacup, and gulped the other. "Christ," he said fervently. Doyle said nothing. 

Bodie cleared his throat and asked, "Remember, when I told you—" 

"Oh, I do," Doyle answered. 

It had been early in their partnership, while they were still only half-friendly, Bodie especially trying to show how hard a man he was. Doyle had explained a little about his family, and Bodie had said, as if boasting, "Me, I'm a genuine bastard. Why Mum named me William, after the bastard of Normandy." 

Growing up, Doyle had known only one child whose parents were not married, and the gossip had said he was his uncle's son. His mother was hardly more than a child herself. Those stories were almost always ugly: girls thrown out of their homes, battered, sent to asylums or to the terrible Magdalene laundries. Even in the Met, "unwed mother" had usually meant "domestic violence victim." He felt frozen, without any idea what to say to Bodie for too long. At last, he grinned uncertainly and said, "William the Conqueror." 

"Of course," Bodie had said, with that smug look of his. 

Now, Doyle looked from the papers to Bodie's downturned face and had no idea how to respond. "She never told you?" he asked at last. 

Bodie shrugged. "Not a word," he said. 

Doyle wanted to put his arm around his partner, make him laugh . . . instead, he just sat staring. "Why you have all those royal names, you think?" 

"Nobody born to be king, you notice? Prince Consort, his father, the Conquering Bastard." Bodie put his glass down next to the teacup, forcefully, and for some reason that freed Doyle to slide down the cushions and throw an arm across Bodie's back. 

The muscles, at first stiff as carved wood, softened a little, and Bodie sighed. "Hours in the car tomorrow," he said at last. 

"Then sleep, OK?" For once, instead of Bodie expressing affection, it was Doyle who leaned in and gave Bodie's temple a smacking kiss. 

Bodie's pursed mouth stretched slowly into a small smile. "Pick me up tomorrow?" 

"I won't think of leaving without you."


	4. Euston Station

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They travel to Liverpool.

The trip wasn't as simple as it had seemed. For instance, the Samavians were expected at Balmoral that evening, but Prince Ivor insisted on going to Liverpool first. 

Doyle tried to explain. "By car, it's about four hours to Liverpool and then nearly eight to Balmoral," he said. "If we left now, it'd be . . ." doing maths in his head, Doyle hesitated, then went on, "half nine, at the earliest, and frankly, we'd be exhausted." 

"Must we drive?" asked Prince Ivor. 

"The last leg, yes, though they should have cars available there to pick up guests who fly in. But it takes all day to fly from London to Liverpool commercially. There's no direct flight." Ivor thought this over, and after a moment, Doyle added, "The nearest airport to Balmoral is Aberdeen. Then by car, a little over an hour from airport to castle." 

"And by train?" Ivor flashed another Bodie-like grin at Ratcliffe, apparently remembering train trips taken together, years ago. 

"Two to three hours, though then we are without transport in the city. And it takes another 12 or so by train to Balmoral." 

"How's this?" said Sir James. "Train to Liverpool, a CI5 car from there?" 

"I'll call Cowley," Doyle said, and immediately pulled out his R/T to do so. 

As CI5 did have a safe house in Liverpool, and by chance McCabe was there with a pool car, the plan was set to take the train to Liverpool, drive to Balmoral and then reverse the process. 

Euston Station was busy, as it always was during morning commuter hours, especially for arrivals. The three elderly men made their leisurely way down the staircases and across the vast hall, Bodie and Doyle looking everywhere, suspicious of everyone who neared the royal party. The ticket line felt dangerous but in fact was simplicity itself to pass through. Trains left for Liverpool every seventeen minutes, by timetable, so they went straight on to the platform and boarded, then walked along to the first car that had two tables with empty seats, two on one side and four at the other, so Crown Prince Ivor and Sir James were at the smaller table and Baron Rastka, Doyle, and Bodie took the larger one. No one tried to sit in the fourth seat. Sir James faced the end of the train, and Crown Prince Ivor faced forward. He watched eagerly as the train slid through London, into the countryside, smiling between the passing lines of trees and his friend. “Remember travelling in France and Germany?” Ivor asked. 

“Oh, I do,” said Sir James. “The crowded cars, wooden seats, lugging bags through every station. Carrying bread and cheese, sometimes a sausage—” 

“Wild onions,” Ivor said. 

“That was Switzerland,” Sir James grinned. “On the road.” 

Bodie leaned forward to ask, “Would you like any food now?” 

“Oh, _you_ don't want any food, do you?” Doyle teased. 

Baron Rastka asked for some tea; Bodie set off for the dining car, coming back with a covered beaker, wrapped sandwiches, oranges, and packets of crisps and biscuits, most of which he ate himself. Doyle had half a sandwich and snagged a few biscuits. Ivor watched every bite Bodie put into his mouth with a kind of humorous satisfaction that would not have made sense to Doyle before he had seen the contents of Bodie's brown envelope. 

They all watched the trees, poplars and ash, then young oaks, as they flitted past, the leaves and branches as unchanging and various as the wake of a boat's motor and the spray jumping up at the bow. The view was hypnotic. One could see the warehouses, factories, and residential neighbourhoods where the tracks ran, children playing street cricket or kicking a football around, chalking hopscotch grids, or jumping rope. A roller skater waved at the train. 

“Travelling for the Game was how I learned to meditate,” said Sir James, thoughtfully. “Before the Game, I'd never been outside the East End. I'd never sat still so long as I did in the trains, the ferries, all that. Never had more than newspapers to read, and them mostly rags.” His accent grew stronger, his voice softer. The sound reminded Doyle of the way Bodie's Scouse flared up when he was anxious or angry. “Then Marco,” with a sharp-edged glance at the Crown Prince, “told me that story, of Loristan's night on the mountainside with the guru, about a thousand times,” and he grinned widely, as did Ivor, “until I knew it by heart, word for word. The trees flowed by, and the words lulled me … nearly to sleep, yet not really. I felt as though I were there—climbing the slope, pulling up to the rock ledge, staring off down the valley. The sun burning down into dusk, the stars flocking out like a snowfall and floating suspended in the sky. I heard the guru, speaking low as if his voice was the movement of my own blood in my veins. Sounded like Loristan. 'Let pass through thy mind, my son, only the image thou wouldst desire to see become a truth. Meditate only upon the wish of thy heart—seeing first that it is such as can wrong no man and is not ignoble. Then will it take earthly form and draw near to thee.'” 

The silence seemed long. Then Ivor cleared his throat and said, “That is the Law of That Which Creates.” 

Bodie said, as if he knew the wish of his heart and had agonised over it, “But how do you know? How can anyone know? There's so much in, in the human heart … so much that is not noble.” 

Ivor leaned forward, held his hand half across the aisle, and said, “Only you can know the depths of your own heart. And even then it's not easy. Keep thinking it through. And I remember the wise man's last five words. Five aren't many to keep in mind, are they? 'Hate not. Fear not. Love.'” 

Bodie repeated them seriously: “Hate not. Fear not. Love.” 

Doyle cleared his throat. “You follow those. You did before you even heard about them.” 

Ivor smiled broadly, his teeth white in the sun that shone through the train windows. 

Bodie's mouth moved, thrust out, twisted down. 

“You _do,_ ” Doyle insisted. “You didn't hate Billy enough to kill him. You didn't kill Krivas. You didn't fear … You don't fear any man, far as I know.” 

Bodie said nothing, but looked hard. He pouted a slow smile, until his eyes crinkled up and his cheeks lifted, and he had no need to say more.


	5. Return to Liverpool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While on the train, Crown Prince Ivor explains some of the past.

As green banks and branches went past, and lines with parked trains or no trains, and warehouses and flat blocks and houses, Ivor began to speak, almost as if to himself, though both Bodie and Doyle listened intently. 

“After the war … you've seen pictures, newsreels, that sort of thing. Buildings, bridges, roads, broken like plates dropped on the floor, or like beer bottles used for target practice. Our capital city Melzarr was … broken. My father visited, wept with his people, brought them food and helped them rebuild shelter. But how could we bring back the city, the trade routes, the standing our poor country had hardly begun to build? I came here to see how Britain was rebuilding. Liverpool is much like Melzarr, more than London is. The river trade, the population, very similar. It was the first thing I did alone.” He reached across the table and touched Sir James' hand. “I felt I was starving. I tried to make friends, but I had little success. Too foreign, and the men I met were still recovering, themselves. There was an architect who came to the local pub with me. I got some books, corresponded with urban planners, asked him questions. I made notes, and we drew maps and made plans. The barmaid brought us pints and looked over our shoulders. Such a rose of a girl, with eyes like the sky at sunset. The sweetest smile, even at the end of the evening, when she was weary. Her name was Mary Maureen.” 

“You married her,” said Doyle. 

The prince nodded once. “I told her who I was. What my future was. She promised me a son, and kept her promise.” His eyes, fixed on Bodie's face, were shining. 

“You left her here.” Bodie's voice was even. Cold. 

“I went ahead. Knew she might be in danger as my fiance. My wife.” 

Bodie looked to one side. His face moved in an expression Doyle could not name. “She never joined you.” 

“We never felt it was safe.” 

Doyle said, “She died young.” 

“Yes,” Ivor said. 

'Her son—your son—stayed here.” 

“I'd had … threatening letters. I was never certain she had died of illness. I feared to draw notice to … my son. My Ivor.” 

They were all silent for a time. 

“You went to one of your mother's relatives, yeah?” Doyle asked Bodie. 

“Great Aunt,” Bodie answered. “Great Aunt Anna.” 

“Were you happy there?” asked the prince. 

Bodie gave a crack of laughter that Doyle had rarely heard before—only to mask pain. The Scouse almost dissolved his words, like acid in the air. “No. The arl arse auld baig. Soon's I could blag on me age, had a little height, I was gone.” 

Doyle nodded. He always had thought, since he'd first heard the age when Bodie had left school, that there must have been more to it than believing formal education had no more to teach him. A child of fourteen … ordinary boredom wasn't enough to send him to the other side of the globe. Though he felt he was being cruel to Prince Ivor, he felt Bodie deserved, needed, to know: “You never came back. Checked back. Made arrangements.” 

Ivor sat silent, his eyes like dark holes in his face. Shame didn't bring blood to his face; instead, he bleached until he looked carved from bone. 

Sir James leaned awkwardly to rest one hand on Ivor's arm. “You didn't sleep last night,” he said. “You must sleep, Sire. We still have hours to go.” 

Ivor neither moved nor spoke for several moments. His face was as pale and still as ice. 

Baron Rastka cleared his throat. “I have a sleep mask for you, Sire,” he said. “If you wish it.” 

Ivor seemed not to have heard. His voice was low and hoarse. “'Let pass through thy mind, my son, only the image thou wouldst desire to see become a truth.' But what if the image you do not want is already a truth?” 

Unexpectedly, Bodie spoke. “What is already a truth cannot be made untrue. Imagine what can be, and do what good you can.” 

Doyle blinked hard, his eyes stinging with pride. Ivor smiled as if he felt the same. “I have a wise son,” he said. “God be thanked!” 

He seemed less pale, as he turned his face to the window and watched the beech trees blur past. 

Soon he seemed asleep. Ratska and Ratcliffe seemed to doze as well. 

“Shoulda brought cards,” Bodie said quietly. 

Doyle answered, “You could get a kip as well. I can keep watch.” 

“A'right.” Bodie tucked his head in the corner of the high back of the seat and shut his eyes. 

Doyle's mind ranged, from thought to thought, and glancing at Bodie sometimes, from thought to feeling. He rested his eyes a little, but could too easily fall asleep himself, the train shifting back and forth, clacking along the tracks. He shifted in his seat and wished for a cup of tea. He ought to have brought a thermos, like the one they used at obbos. 

Bodie snuffled in his sleep, abruptly, and though the sound was not loud, Doyle startled and looked around at the royal party. Sir James was asleep with his head rubbing against the window glass. Crown Prince Ivor was awake, and his lips curved up, again so like Bodie that the sight made Doyle feel he knew Ivor better than he really did. 

“May I ask you something?” he said. 

The prince smiled a little more broadly and said, “Certainly, my boy.” 

“Did you never think of coming here? You know, later? In, say, 1956, '57?” 

“Think of it, yes, endlessly. I'd wake in the morning, look out over Melzarr, and wonder if my son were looking over Liverpool. Were the steamboats blowing their long horns? Was it pelting down rain, or were puffs of fog tumbling along the street?” 

Doyle knew he ought not to push, but he did anyway. “Yet you didn't come.” 

“You remember 1956. Samavia didn't have much of a Communist Party. But the Soviets came down on Hungary like a giant mallet. I liased with Worker's Parties in every part of our economy: agricultural, industrial, touristry. We had to make sure their needs were met. I didn't dare step foot outside our borders. I didn't dare skip a meeting, miss a day.” 

He rubbed his mouth, uncertain and unhappy, looking out the train window again. “Or I told myself so. Now? I do not know.” 

Doyle shifted in his seat again. He still felt as though he had to know what Bodie would not ask. He might be able to explain … no, he couldn't really imagine himself digging into Bodie's emotions this way, but he felt as though he were asking on Bodie's behalf, somehow. “He ran away from home in 1961. He talked his way onto a ship, jumped in Dakar, ended up doing mercenary soldier work. He didn't have … didn't know he had … he was alone.” Sir James' head slipped, and he brought it up suddenly, blinked at Ivor, and smiled before closing his eyes again. 

Doyle spoke again, his voice lower. “I don't know how I feel, much less how he feels now. The warrior he is now, his expertise with weapons, his strength and endurance, they come from that time, and without it, I'm not sure I'd be here today. I think it was a hard time, that it hurt him in many ways. It was hard for him to work with a partner, to trust our organization, but he learned it, and I learned him. I trust him, with everything. I don't know how I'd work without him now.” 

Ivor said nothing. Doyle went on, “Mr Cowley says our job is to make sure that England goes on smelling, just a little, of roses and lavender.” 

The prince smiled a little then. “In Samavia, there are tiny yellow roses that smell like honey, and little white bell-shaped flowers that smell even sweeter. Yes, we keep the sweet flowers in order and their sweet airs near.” 

Doyle smiled, looked at Bodie sleeping and smiled again, hoping his expression showed all the pride and confidence he felt, and none of the selfish fear. “He'd do well there,” he said. He wanted, suddenly, to lay a hand on Bodie's shoulder or his arm, to ruffle his soft, thick hair. But it might wake him, and Bodie needed his rest.


	6. Great Aunt Anna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What they find in Liverpool is unsatisfying.

The train slid to a stop in Liverpool with a screech of brakes. Bodie and Sir James jolted awake and gathered themselves. The others picked up coats and bags, and Prince Ivor helped Sir James get his jacket on. The train platform was crowded, and the wind was stiff and chill. They followed the other arriving passengers into the station and to its front exit. Baron Rastka flagged a taxi, and Doyle gave the cab driver the address of the safe house, where Anson and Jax greeted them, and they picked up the Ford Escort and suggestions for where they could get a pub lunch 

Bodie drove. As they jolted through the battered streets of the city, Ivor did not conceal his shock. Bodie wore his most remote, blank face. Doyle had been reading about Liverpool for years now and felt little surprise, but a deep, frustrated sadness. 

Ratcliffe broke the silence. “When was the last … bombing?” 

“Luftwaffe?” said Doyle. “1941.” 

“And I was here in '46,” said the Crown Prince. “Now it seems not a stone was set back on another.” 

“The new public housing was shabby,” Doyle said, remembering news reports. “Factories closed. Unemployment...around 25% even now. Rents went up, public help went down. Are you familiar with Thatcher's policies?” 

Bodie shifted in the driver's seat. Doyle's mouth quirked and his eyebrow did as well. “Bodie voted for her.” 

“Conservative,” Bodie tossed over his shoulder. “She don't understand Liverpudleans, though. Or footie.” 

Ivor nodded slightly, so Doyle decided he'd read about the disaster in May, fans crushing each other and breaking the stadium and each other's heads. “When people feel nobody's looking after 'em, and the owners an' landlords just see 'em as … as wallets for them to put their 'ands in, that's when this kind of violence 'appens. In the stadium or in the streets. It's been a class war here.” 

Bodie's hands grasped in the air, while he grinned broadly and flicked an eyebrow at Doyle. “Get those aitches back, angelfish, they're sprayin' like a messy sneeze.” 

“Certainly, my … honorable, hale, hardy, hearty ...” 

“Heteroclite, said Bodie smugly. “That's you.” 

They pulled up to a small rather gray semi-detatched, so Doyle didn't bother to keep bantering. 

Ivor and Bodie went up to the door together, the others following. The bell clanged inside, and they heard an uneven step come toward them. The door resisted as it opened, and they waited while Bodie's great-aunt wrestled with it. Then they all faced each other over the threshold. 

“Anna O'Connor,” Crown Prince Ivor said. 

Doyle stared, trying to trace a line of bone or brow she shared with Bodie. He couldn't find one. The woman looked as much a ruin as the demolished flat blocks they'd driven past to get here. She was like an abandoned warehouse. She squinted at them. “Billy,” she said. 

Bodie frowned. “Bodie, I use.” 

She shrugged. “Not your real name. But I don't pay it no mind.” 

Bodie gave a tight, mirthless smile before he said, “'M sure you haven't given me a thought these 25 years. Remember this gentleman?” 

“Foreigner she walked out with.” 

“She was my wife.” Ivor's voice as deep and his accent was stronger. “This is my son.” 

She shrugged. “Worthless son of a worthless da.” 

“The Crown Prince of Samavia!” Ratcliffe's forehead snapped down like the bill of a flat cap, the way a street boy would pull it down before charging in with both fists. 

Anna was unimpressed. “'N I'm the Grand Duchess of Gammon and Spinach, meself.” 

Baron Rastka, behind Ivor, Bodie, Ratcliffe, and Doyle, tossed his hands in the air, as if to ask how this rude old woman could be borne. 

“I thought,” Bodie said in the even, cold voice he used in interrogations, “you might want to know she was married. All that shame you carried, tried to push on me, that was the gammon and spinach. Tell your neighbors, now. Put it in the church bulletin. And if there's anything of hers you haven't burnt or pawned, I'd like to collect it.” 

She stared, eyes narrowed, and her pinched regard gave Doyle a sharp feeling of the kind of life Bodie had fled when he ran away. He felt a hot flush of protective anger and clenched his teeth, knowing Bodie would want none of it. 

“Didn't keep a rag of her rubbish.” 

Bodie looked aside, brows knit, and Ivor mirrored the gesture. Doyle felt irrationally cheered. The old besom didn't even know her own luck, with both Loristans wanting to live up to each other even more than they wanted to strike out. 

“Well, then, ma, there's nothing else we need to bother you for,” he said, cheeky and glad to be almost done here. 

There was no last word to have, no keepsake that they could carry away. As they went back to the car, Doyle rested a hand on Bodie's shoulder, just for a moment, and got a look in return from under Bodie's lashes, sweet as thanks. 

Another day, another terrible old woman, and they'd have had whiskey and perhaps a sausage roll. Today, they had meat pies and a pint each. Then, back in the Escort, Bodie drove hither and yon through Liverpool, to A5038 and eventually to the M6. They stopped about once an hour to stretch their legs, use a WC, get a cup of tea, and twice for Prince Ivor to rub Ratcliffe's back. The car was only just able to fit five grown men with Ratcliffe in the center of the back seat, and Doyle knew from experience that the transmission did not give a comfortable ride even without scoliosis. Doyle drove the second leg, M79 to M80, and Bodie the last one, Balmoral Road to A and B roads and at last turning into the castle estates. The drive was long and lined with trees, rather like the train line had been. 

They hadn't talked much. While Doyle was driving, Bodie had suddenly said over the back of the seat to Ivor, “I wrote you letters. She must have thrown them away. I had them in a box. The oldest ones were just scribbles, before I could write. Later they were like a diary. I thought you were maybe a sailor, looked up where the ships went, hung about the docks and talked to anyone who'd tell me their yarns.” 

Ivor cleared his throat and swiped at his nose with his handkerchief. It was still in his hand as he said, “I wrote you, as well, though I had no address once you went to live with Miss O'Connor. Even when, a few weeks ago, we worked out protection from CI5, and I had confidence you would turn out to be … you, it seemed too much to bring a great sheath of paper and drop it in your lap.” 

Ratcliffe said something in Samavian. “Yes, that one,” Ivor answered. “The carving looks … like a toy box. But there's really quite a lot of space. All the letters fit in it.” He looked at Bodie from under his lashes, the way Bodie often looked at Doyle, and said, “Perhaps you can come to Melzarr and read them for yourself.” 

Doyle found he didn't like that idea. It must be harmless, a gesture of Ivor's willingness to bond with this unexpected son, but Doyle did not want Bodie to go away. To Samavia, to a castle where he could be a member of a royal family, and though little Samavia was not the richest place to live, it would make a great difference to be the heir's son, the heir's heir, instead of a mere civil servant. 

It was time to break again, to start the last lap of the drive. In the car park of the tea shop they had picked, Doyle got out of the car and stood at the driver-side door and set his mouth hard, not saying anything, and caught Ratcliffe's eye. It seemed too knowing, too sympathetic.


	7. The Running of the Deer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At Balmoral

While royal news and interviews tended to make Balmoral sound like a simple rural getaway where the Queen washed dishes and Philip read by the fire, their arrival, the state dinner, the evening salon, and the luxurious appointments of every room were formal enough to be quite reminiscent of Buckingham Palace. The Soviet ambassador was in attendance and was coming on the next day's hunt. His attendants did not, it appeared, speak English even enough to exchange hopes for Liverpool's chances of the Cup. 

Doyle tried not to be paranoid. After all, he didn't speak Russian either. 

The morning was bright and clear, warm for the early autumn, and both Bodie and Doyle liked a bit of shooting of a morning—usually beer cans and not deer, but Bodie was delighted to have a rifle to use. After breakfast, Crown Prince Ivor watched with interest as Bodie broke down the gun and checked it over, cleaning it and then sighting it in. 

“Bodie's the better rifleman of the two of us,” Doyle explained. 

“But you will not believe how accurate Doyle is with a handgun. Best of the Met, three years running,” Bodie put in. 

Doyle shrugged this off. “Not using that today, though. Unless there's trouble.” 

“You probably could hunt roe deer with your Walther.” 

“If I want my venison shredded.” 

They gathered for the hunt, with guides and beaters. Doyle felt he was more like the servants than the guests and royals. He hoped he wouldn't be detailed to bring home meat and trophies. And there were the Russians, the ambassador dressed in tweed and what looked like golfing pants, rifle broken over one arm, and the … guards, really, in khaki trousers and jackets, looking like soldiers on training maneuvers. 

“I think I've seen that shorter one before,” Bodie muttered. 

“I'm sorry,” Doyle said after eyeing Shorter Guard consideringly. “They all look alike to me. I never know Right-Hand Bloke from Left-Hand Bloke when Cowley takes his KGB meeting, either.” 

Bodie “tsk”ed. “You must observe more closely, 4-5,” he said in his terrible Cowley imitation. 

“Lovely German accent, there,” Doyle smirked. 

The grass was to his shoulders, the seed heads swaying and songbirds fluttering up as they were disturbed by hunters. Beween birds and hunters and beaters, everything around was moving. There might be deer, but he could not tell. The sun lay hot on his shoulders and the top of his head. “Should've had sun crème,” he said, thinking that the red tips of Bodie's ears and the back of his neck would be burned by the end of the day. 

Bodie shrugged and eyed the shorter Russian as he veered closer, then strode forward toward the Crown Prince. The barrel of the Russian's rifle rose—perhaps just the result of the uneven ground—but the man's face twisted, his teeth showed, and Doyle shouted “Down! Prince!” and drew his own gun from his shoulder holster, while Bodie tackled his father and several gunshots went off at once. The Russian cried out. The ambassador turned back, face already astounded and appalled. The guard was on the ground. Sir James held a miniature handgun. He grimaced, “The calibre of this pop-gun is hardly worth it. But it does tend to make even a heavily-armed assailant at least stop and think.” 

Bodie and Ivor got up, again with such similar expressions and body language that they looked like full-length mirror reflections. Bodie took a step toward Doyle and Ivor put his arm around Sir James' shoulders. Bodie's eyes burned into Doyle's for a few seconds, reminding Doyle of the ambush at his flat-block door. Again, he swallowed and joked: “I think it's only six to go, now, sunshine.” 

“'D be none, without you. Thanks.” It was the same expression as that evening, too, eyes round and mouth soft, gratitude stronger than the word could carry beaming straight to Doyle's heart, making him catch his breath and gulp. 

The Queen's security detail was all round them by that time. They hustled off all three Russians, the ambassador gabbling some excuse that the CI5 men could ignore. 

Later, back in the castle with tea and cakes, the Crown Prince, Ratcliffe, Rastka, Bodie and Doyle talked the event over. “Does this happen often?” Bodie asked. 

“No, no, in Samavia we have never had any assassin even try. The Soviet spies there try to drum up fanaticism in native workers, but they do not take into account how important the Lost Prince story always was and how much oppression the Maranovitch tolerated—encouraged.” He chuckled. “We have had a hard road to be sure there is any opposition party!” He shook his head. “Our laws are drawn to protect dissent, to punish those who seek to grind down and eradicate anyone who dares not to adore their own Ivor!” 

He sobered. “It will take time. My father worries about it, worries for me and my heirs. We often discuss together how to educate and nurture our citizenry toward a true democracy.” 

“Growing politicians on purpose!” Bodie said. “You need a Cowley.” 

“I want you.” Ivor seemed to have surprised himself, though not as much as he seemed to startle Bodie. “Come, come,” the prince said. “You must have thought of it. Ivor the First cannot live forever. For that matter, nor can I. You can be … must be? … Ivor the Third.” 

“That's not my name.” 

“I was Marco Loristan before I became Prince Ivor.” 

Bodie shook his head. “I can't even speak the language.” 

“I learned it,” said Sir James. 

“I am not going to be a … Hanoverian king.” 

“Or a Norman one,” Doyle said, his mouth twisting a little as he remembered “the Conquering Bastard.” 

“Even a Stuart. Or William of Orange.” 

“Without even a Mary.” 

Bodie's eyebrows drew together. “That's another thing. I'd need to marry, wouldn't I?” 

“I … have considered doing so,” Ivor said. “Before I came here to see how you had grown up.” 

“If you'd done it when you found out my mother was dead, your little Ivor could be twenty-something now, a fine, homegrown prince. There would … what was it? Stand a man for Samavia?” 

“Yes,” the prince admitted. “But _you_ could stand a man for Samavia.” 

Bodie smiled, “I'm a man for England. Of course, I'd enjoy bigger paychecks, but, well, I wouldn't want to desert Cowley. Or Doyle here. What would happen if he got into trouble?” 

Doyle tried to look insulted. “I'd get myself out.” 

“Would you?” 

Doyle remembered being tied up on the library floor with tape over his mouth, squirming across the council flat floor to reach the phone, facing Mayli and her gun. 

“I'd have to try, wouldn't I?” It was the only thing he could say. 

Bodie lowered his gaze, pursed his mouth, met Prince Ivor's eyes. “Couldn't have that, y'see? I'd never sleep again.” 

“Come along,” Ivor said to Doyle. 

“I … can't. Make a snap decision. About this.” 

The silence seemed to drag out, but according to the little porcelain-faced clock on the mantel, not even one minute went by before Ivor sighed and said, “We should get going. Back to Liverpool.”


	8. Jiggety-Jig

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They return to London. Ray has an idea about the Samavian succession.

Bodie and Doyle split the driving into shorter shifts on the way back, stopping about every hour. They were all tired, and grew more exhausted as they went. Bodie and Doyle talked mostly nonsense to each other, to keep the driver awake. 

All three older men in the back had dozed off. At the first stop and driver change, Sir James had not even tried to clamber out of the car. At the second, though, Doyle handing off to Bodie, Prince Ivor helped his friend get out and handed him the crutches. Sir James swung himself around the car twice, and then got himself back in. Bodie grinned to watch him go, and Prince Ivor remarked, “He wins money from the palace guards, for tricks and races. He used to go by 'The Rat,' but honestly, I think of him as a little monkey. My little monkey.” His voice could hardly have been more fond. 

Doyle said with a significant look, while Ivor helped Sir James get settled, “He would have been a good father.” 

“Yes,” Bodie answered. “Wonder what that would've been like.” 

Doyle didn't know either. He'd been under ten when his own father had died. 

“How'd you like to try it?” 

“Are you barking? Might 's well give me a lace gown with a 20 foot train and a high neck. No, mate. Not a bit of it.” 

“What do you think of a dynastic marriage?” 

“I'd have to see her first.” 

“Who's that bird, princess, in Jordan? Or Greece?” 

Bodie shrugged his eyebrows and looked out the windscreen. 

Doyle didn't know how to talk about it. Part of him wanted to beg Bodie to stay. 

But what he actually ended up saying was, “Remember when I asked you why you joined this mob and you said the money?” 

“'Course.” 

Doyle let a few minutes pass. At last he said roughly, “This is more.” 

He looked at the back seat. Sir James had turned half to one side. Prince Ivor had one arm round him, and Sir James had tucked his head into Ivor's neck. Doyle went on, “They've been together, living and working—” His own voice felt like a rope unraveling— “almost all their lives.” 

“Seventy years.” Bodie shook his head. “ _Seventy years._ ” 

“And we've been partners, what, ten?” 

“Doesn't seem like much next to them, does it?” Bodie's pouting smile was turned away, but Doyle knew just how it looked. 

The truth was, Bodie would hate being cornered into marrying any bird he hadn't pulled himself. The worse truth was, Doyle would hate it if Bodie married at all. He couldn't say that. 

The car was silent for quite a while. Air pushed on the windows. Hedgerows and lines of trees blurred on either side. The sky grew grayer. Rain splattered on the windows. 

Bodie slapped the steering wheel, but didn't make much noise. The men in back didn't stir. 

“What if I _don't,_ though? Eh? Bring down the Fedorovitch and destabilize a country just outside of the Iron Curtain? Let the Soviets slide it westward? Cowley will love _that._ ” 

“Won't be happy if you go, either.” 

“Not the first time I couldn't please the Cow.” Bodie rolled his shoulders and began to look for the next exit for their third changeover. 

Doyle thought, _Too bad he doesn't have his own bastard._

They were about at the halfway point, Balmoral to Liverpool, and Bodie found a tea-room for their rest stop. They ordered two pots of tea: Earl Grey for Bodie, Ivor and Rastka; Assam for Doyle and Ratcliffe. Bodie and Ivor ate meat pies ravenously. They all had crumpets with jam and cream. They used the W Cs and walked up and down the street a bit, peering in shop windows. Sir James performed some stretches to relieve his lower back. 

Doyle's mind went round and round the thought he'd had, wondering if he dared even speak of it to Bodie. 

“Angelfish,” Bodie said as they settled into cruising speed on the motorway, “Say it. I can hear the gears grinding in your head clear over here.” 

Doyle shook his head and said nothing. 

“Why not?” 

Doyle rubbed across his chest where the bruise had been, those years ago. Bodie and he usually understood each other, rarely needed verbal explanations. While what he remembered was a time they hadn't understood or worked as well together as usual, they had never talked about it afterwards either. 

In the end, he burst out, though he still spoke for Bodie's ears only. “Did you ever listen to those interview tapes? You were so angry about?” 

Bodie thought it over. “You mean Marikka?” 

“Yes. She had a son.” 

“What?” 

“Pay attention, pillock. Cowley knows. It was on the tape. At first I thought it was a slip, but then I thought it wasn't. I think she wanted to let you know. D'you think, well, that she thought she might get killed?” 

Bodie watched the rain wipers swoop across the windscreen for quite a long while. Not looking at Doyle, he said, “Yes.” 

Doyle drove through the rain as it fell more heavily. Bodie rubbed his face, down to his jaw and then up and back down. The men in the back seat were silent.. 

At last, Doyle spoke, tentatively. “So it's not the End of the House of Loristan, no matter what you decide..” 

Doyle drove; Bodie brooded; the men in the back seat slept. 

“What do you want, mate?” Doyle asked. “The desire of your heart?” 

Bodie made a flat, brief “haw”ing sound that Doyle barely recognized as a sarcastic laugh. 

“I can't have it,” he said. 

Doyle admonished him, “That's not how the Law of Earthly Living works." 

“It _doesn't_ work. When has wishing for anything dropped it in your lap?” 

Doyle spoke slowly, thinking hard. “Not wishing, mate. Done plenty of that. You're right, it's rubbish. But focusing, understanding how a thing might happen, acting to make it happen, that's not just wishing. That brings something to you.” 

Bodie did not answer. 

Doyle let him have his silence until he had to fight the hypnotic rhythm of the rain wipers. He took one hand off the wheel, stretched his elbow up and gripped the back of his neck. “Time?” he asked. 

Bodie looked at his watch, and said, “Half three, thereabouts.” 

“Ta.” But after a few minutes' silence, Doyle ventured, “Where was Marikka's family from? Where'd she grow up?” 

By the movement of his shoulders, Bodie was not sure. “Met her in East Berlin. Knew the city like the back of her hand. I'd start there, I reckon.” 

Doyle nodded. “Wilhelm Schumann, you think?” 

Bodie really shrugged. “Likely.” 

“We can start tonight, if you like. Be about eight, I think, and you know HQ will still be buzzing.” He took a breath. “Julie could help.” 

The view out the side window seemed fascinating. “Lot of explaining to do. Rather not get into it. Think you'll be too knackered?” 

“Sittin' on me bum the whole day, don't think so.” 

“Ta.” More silence. It was nearly time for the next break. “Know what I want?” 

“Tell me.” 

Bodie's head jerked in Ivor's direction. “What they have. Bisto Kids for seventy years.” 

For a moment, Doyle let his heart soar as it had not done since he held Anne in his arms. “Can't promise I'll be vaulting the car bonnet or going up warehouse steps two at a time when I turn a century, sunshine. But long as I can limp along.” 

Bodie leaned forward, and his hand covered Doyle's on the steering wheel. “Hold that in mind, I will.” 

(to be continued)


End file.
